


but he talks like a gentleman

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIAMH!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-24 22:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4937899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(like you imagined when you were young)<br/>It's Robb's twenty-fifth birthday, and Sansa might just be falling for one of his best friends. 'But, still, it’s Jon Umber. He’s been a constant in her life ever since she was born, Robb’s best friend who once walked into her room whilst she was lip-syncing to the Spice Girls, having stolen one of her Mum's lipsticks, red smeared everywhere but on her lips. He’s seen every little embarrassing thing she’s ever done, including the time she dove into the waves at King's Landing and emerged sans bikini top, and heard about the rest from Robb.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	but he talks like a gentleman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/gifts).



> The happiest of birthdays to the lovely Niamh! Her amazing, AMAZING writing not only got me interested in Sansa/Willas, but in Sansa/Smalljon as well! Everything she writes is pure gold and she's just a wonderful person all round, I adore her to bits. Niamh, I hope you have the best best bestest day ever, because you deserve it 1100%. *insert kissy face emoji here*

Sansa may share her mother’s fair Tully looks, which make her extremely prone to sunburn and freckles, but there's no denying that she has her father’s Stark stature. She towers above almost all of her family members, her height something her brothers would be admired for but unfortunately makes her look immensely awkward, especially as it's accompanied by a set of ample hips her mother swears will make childbirth a breeze.

She’s tall, and there’s no denying it, no use trying to hide it.

In heels she stands taller than even Robb, a fact he despises. Her stature makes for terrible family photos, Sansa almost always shuffled to the back of the group and appearing merely as a grinning head attached to the shoulder of one of her siblings. It would be hilarious if every picture wasn’t exactly the same, Sansa’s face always appearing at the back of the group, body hidden from view. She’s often wondered what the point of spending so much on such a beautiful outfit is, if it’s just going to be completely hidden in photographs. Honestly, she thinks she could wear a burlap sack and no one looking at the photos would ever know the difference.

Her brothers constantly grumble over the fact that she refuses to wear anything other than heels to events – but really, what else is she to do? If she doesn't wear heels Mum would have a fit, and so would the society pages. God knows Arya has already challenged their mother enough by cutting her hair short and refusing to wear anything not personally selected by her – which means something black and tight-fitting to show off her sister’s enviable petite figure.

Arya’s outfits appear in photographs in all their entirety, a fact which Sansa has always been more than a little annoyed about, even if her sister is wearing something she picked up at the local goodwill when Sansa spent oodles of money on her dress. She’s become more and more frustrated with the difficulties she encounters every single time she goes shopping, because even in two-thousand and freaking fifteen it’s remarkably hard to find a dress which does not end obscenely far above her knees. Heaven forbid a woman be taller than the average.

And she can’t even begin to count the amount of times she’s gone shopping and finally found something which looks like it’ll be the perfect length, only to slide it over her head and find that she cannot possibly stretch the dress around her hips. It’s both infuriating and saddening, and she cherishes the few dresses that manage to fit and aren’t so short as to make her father have a coronary when he sees her. How could she ever try and explain to the media that her father, _the_ Ned Stark, died because his daughter's dress was too short?

Honestly, it isn't her fault she ended up so tall.

Her brothers all blame her, when she has no control over how her body decided to grow. If anyone is to be blamed, it’s her parents, and her grandparents before them– Dad always tells her about how Nana Stark was a very tall woman. But no matter what, no matter the very real explanation behind her height, she’ll always remember being thirteen and hearing Mum groan on and on about how she had to take down her school skirt for the third time this year. Her rapid growth was, and still is, something which was seemingly entirely her fault, as if she wanted to tower over most of the people she meets. A series of growth spurts had hit her suddenly at thirteen, and they’d only stopped a week before her nineteenth birthday. Her Mum could complain all she liked about her clothes, because she’d never had to live in Sansa’s body. 

She'd gladly bestow several centimetres of her height onto her brothers, if only to stop the awkward stares she encounters in public. Even walking down the street causes people to stare, and she knows they don’t mean to be rude, but she won’t lie and pretend like it doesn’t annoy her some days, having all these people looking at her simply because she’s taller than most of the other women they know. And don’t even start her on the problems that have arisen in her dating life due to her height. Joffrey was centimetres shorter than her, even when she was sans shoes, and the way she towered over him at any public event made him so very angry. Everything made him angry, and she’s just glad she got out of that relationship before anything _truly_ terrible happened. 

The only male in her life right now that is taller than her Jon Umber, Robb's best friend whom he has always called Smalljon (which, she’ll admit, is a remarkably ironic name, considering Jon stands at six feet, five inches) and she isn’t about to start dating one of Robb’s friends purely because he’s one of the very few males she knows who are taller than her. She’s known Jon for her whole life, and whilst she knows the combination of his neatly-kept beard, height and cheeky grin makes him immensely attractive (she’s tall, not blind, okay?), he’s always been more like a brother to her. A brother more than willing to slip her alcohol when Robb wasn’t looking, but a brother nonetheless.

So, after an eight month dry spell after splitting up with Joffrey, the males currently in her life consist of her father, her uncles, her brothers, and friends of her brothers whom she’s known for years and couldn’t possibly see herself dating.

_How utterly, completely, entirely fantastic._

\---

Mum decides to host a dinner for Robb’s twenty-fifth birthday, which means that Sansa not only has to help with the cooking the night before, but she has to greet most of the guests herself. Arya is apparently stuck in traffic (more likely sucking face with some guy), Robb’s sipping on a beer and refusing to do anything because he’s the ‘birthday boy’, Jon’s helping Dad set up the gazebo in the backyard, Bran’s in his room playing some game or another, and she wouldn’t subject her worst enemy, not even Joffrey himself, to the so-called hospitality of Rickon and Shaggydog.

Myrcella, thankfully, angelically, arrives two hours early to help them out, blonde hair falling down her back in loose curls and lips painted a shade of red Sansa knows shall shortly decorate her brother’s own lips.  Sansa hugs her tightly, and tells her to please try and convince Robb to help out, seeing as it’s his birthday they’re hosting this event for after all. Myrcella merely laughs in her ear, shaking her head as she pulls back from Sansa’s embrace. 

“You should know your brother better than that,” she chides Sansa, chuckling. 

“Myrcella,” she whines. “He’s your boyfriend, so you better than anyone have the best chance of making him help out. Can’t you, I don’t know, threaten to withhold sexual favours unless he helps?” 

“First of all, gross. Sansa I love you, but I refuse to talk about my sex life with your brother with you.” Myrcella shudders, shaking her head and shrugging out of her coat. She makes her way to the kitchen, Sansa trailing behind her. As she picks up a knife, slicing a carrot so finely, so quickly, that one would think her a trained chef (which she is studying to be, so), she says, “Although, the whole withholding sexual favours is a good idea. I’m definitely going to have to try that one sometime.” 

Sansa groans, but bites her tongue and leaves the kitchen, texting Arya for what seems like the millionth time to hurry up and get here. Minutes later, she’s still so engrossed in her phone, her last ten texts to Ayra unanswered and being so overwhelmed by the thought of having to do everything Mum told her, plus Arya’s duties, that she doesn’t register the door opening, brow furrowed as she leans against the wall. 

It is only until Jon is standing above her, his beard neatly trimmed and his lips curled into a gentle smile, that she realises she isn’t alone in the hallway. Jon shrugs off his coat, and she nearly drops her phone in a combination of surprise and awe as she watches his muscles move. Sansa may consider him a brother, but she won’t lie, Jon Umber is  very attractive. His attractiveness (she’d often wondered if her brother chose his friends deliberately on a scale of how handsome they were, just to taunt her) had been the bane of her existence growing up, especially when she’d been stuck in the awkward stages of puberty, surrounded by Robb’s friends who were years older than her and looking more and more like the models in the magazines she begged Mum to buy. 

“Hello Sansa,” Jon says, a bag hanging from his left hand and a case of beer on the floor next to him. He grins at her, his hair in need of a cut, and seriously, has it only been four months since she saw him last? How can she not be used to the sight of him? 

And to make matters worse, she’s currently wearing her oldest, should have been chucked out years ago, actually probably should have been burnt, clothes, primarily so she doesn’t stain her good dress. Her hair is pulled back away from her face, and she’s pretty sure she still has some green residue from her cleansing mask lingering on her skin. It’s not her fault, she didn’t expect anyone of note to show up before 6, giving her more than three hours (four, if Arya would _hurry_ up) to make herself presentable. 

She should have known better, she supposes. Jon has always been the type of guy who will arrive early purely just to help out, not lounge around with Robb drinking beers when it’s just gone past 2. If Robb keeps this up, she thinks, he’ll be passed out on the couch before 9, and won’t that make for a fun birthday? 

But, still, it’s Jon Umber. He’s been a constant in her life ever since she was born, Robb’s best friend who once walked into her room whilst she was lip-syncing to the Spice Girls, having stolen one of her Mum's lipsticks, red smeared everywhere but on her lips. He’s seen every little embarrassing thing she’s ever done, including the time she dove into the waves at King's Landing and emerged sans bikini top, and heard about the rest from Robb. Who cares if she’s in her oldest, rattiest clothes, without any makeup on and her hair in desperate need of a wash? 

Okay _she_ does, but Jon seemingly doesn’t, judging by the smile he’s giving her. 

“Hi,” she murmurs, extending a hand. “Give me your coat, I’ll stash it somewhere no one will be able to find it and puke on it. God knows we can’t afford another dry-cleaning bill like the one from Robb’s last birthday.” 

Jon chuckles, and she has to force herself to breathe as he hands her his coat, stepping closer to her to wrap her in a hug, his hands warm on the small of her back. He smells like an expensive cologne, something woody and musky that she immediately loves, and for once she’s able to enjoy a hug like any other person, seeing as Jon thankfully towers several centimetres over her. 

“Always the thoughtful one,” he says, releasing her from his embrace. She shrugs in response, trying to look casual despite the fact her heart is hammering in her chest. 

Jon bends down to pick up his discarded case of beer, lifting the object with ease. They walk down the rest of the hallway side by side, separating only when they reach the kitchen. “I assume Robb's being the lazy sod he always is?” Jon asks, greeting her mother and Myrcella with two quick hugs. Myrcella shoots her a wink when Jon isn’t looking, gesturing at the curve of his ass, and Sansa merely flushes in response. 

Her mum answers Jon before she has a chance to, taking his case of beer and stashing it in the almost-empty fridge, emptied for such a purpose. Sansa sighs at the thought, because an abundance of alcohol and Robb do not make a good pair, judging from past experiences. “You know Robb,” Catelyn says, shaking her head. Sansa notes the presence of a white smear of flour across her mother’s forehead, but she doesn’t dare point it out, preferring to stare at Jon’s rather nice backside instead. “Hopefully you’ll have better luck making him help out than we’ve had,” she laughs, wiping her hands on a clean dish towel. Myrcella, thankfully, wipes away the smear of white flour with a wet cloth. 

“I’ll try my best,” Jon promises, sliding open the back door and ducking his head to exit the kitchen. As she watches him leave, Sansa notes the way his shirt stretches over his shoulder muscles, and she shivers at the sight.

“You’d better go get ready Sansa,” her mother orders her as she takes an onion and begins chopping it, Myrcella beating eggs together for mini-quiches, Robb’s favourite. "Myrcella and I can handle things in here."

“Yeah, you’d better,” Myrcella teases, poking out her tongue at Sansa. “You look fairly dreadful!”

Sansa rolls her eyes at the two of them but heads up the stairs nonetheless, tugging the elastic from her hair and turning the shower on, waiting a few moments for the water to heat up. Their family has lived in this home for centuries, and whilst other Starks have attempted renovations here and there, Sansa really wishes Dad would hurry up and replace the old piping like he's promised to for years.

She showers to the sound of Jon ordering Robb to get off his lazy arse and help out, the bathroom directly overlooking the garden. As she lathers her hair with shampoo, she peers down and swears that Jon is looking up at the bathroom window, her brother begrudgingly shifting chairs, beer discarded for the moment. And even though she knows that Mum had the bathroom window tinted exactly with this type of scenario in mind, especially after Robb and his friends started to hit puberty, Sansa jumps back almost immediately, knocking her knee on the metal shower caddy and cursing loudly. 

Her knee on fire, Sansa merely sighs, rinsing her hair under the water, and thinks, _it’s going to be a very, very long night_. 

\----

When her hair is rinsed and semi-dry, Arya, thankfully, has finally ‘escaped traffic’, dishevelled in a way that only serious making out can cause. Sansa arches an eyebrow at her sister, a towel wound around her body, but says nothing, merely steps to one side to let her sister into the bathroom.

She shrugs into a robe once in the safety of her bedroom, thinking it probably best not to don her party dress yet, not when she still has makeup to apply. Her hair is clipped up high on her head, Sansa hoping that it doesn’t frizz before she has a chance to style it. Robe tied tight around her waist, she seats herself in front of her vanity, and begins applying her makeup. Arya might think it silly, to have such an abundance of brushes and products, having a lipstick in every shade and enough concealer to conceal even the worst of bruises, but Sansa needs them, needs the security only makeup can offer. Joffrey’s mother, Cersei, had taken her aside one evening after dinner over at the Baratheon’s, and pressed a small tub of concealer into her hands, snidely remarking that it wouldn’t do for Sansa to appear in public like that. That had been the only kindness the woman had ever offered her, and Sansa still wonders why Cersei never thought to try and stop Joffrey, to try and make him realise that he shouldn’t be hitting his girlfriend, instead of insisting Sansa cover her bruises up, lest the public realise what was really going on.

She never dipped her fingers into that seemingly magical pot of concealer whilst she was at home alone in her bedroom though, and that was how her family had found out, Robb bursting into her room early on morning, blabbering on about how Myrcella needed to borrow something or other. He’d stopped speaking just as soon as he really looked at her, Sansa’s eyes bloodshot from weeping and the harsh bruises on her arms, her neck, even her cheeks, noticeable against her pale skin. It had taken Myrcella, her father, Jon and Theon to calm Robb down, Theon even resorting to sitting on her brother to stop him from going around to the Baratheon’s and beating Joffrey into a pulp. Myrcella had wept at the sight of her, gathering Sansa into her arms and swearing that she hadn’t known, that she was sorry, why hadn’t Sansa told her, she could have helped.

But no one had known. That had been the whole point, and somewhere inside of her she had felt proud of being able to cover her bruises up so well, to hide the truth from the whole world.

Sansa shakes her head at her reflection in the mirror, pulling out a brush and her favourite foundation. There is no time today for such thoughts, she thinks, dabbing foundation onto her cheeks and blending it in before it dries. Joffrey is part of her past, and Robb’s birthday is part of her future, and really, she can’t be late to a party being held in her own backyard, can she?

She has just finished her makeup, capping her pink lipstick when Arya knocks on her open door, hair wet against her neck. Sansa rubs her lips together before she looks up at her sister, Arya leaning against the doorframe and clad in her usual attire of jeans and a top.

“Can I borrow some of your concealer?” she asks without pause, drumming her fingers against her knee.

“What for?” Sansa questions, unclipping her hair, her auburn strands thankfully still smooth and ready to be styled.

Arya rolls her eyes, turning towards Sansa and sweeping her hair away from her neck. “For these, of course,” she murmurs, and Sansa nearly grins at the sight of several hickies decorating her little sister’s neck. That is, until she realises that Arya, boyish little Arya, is somehow old enough to be getting some, and what’s worse, she’s seeing more action than Sansa herself, if these hickies are anything to judge by.

Sansa merely sighs, and shakes her head at Arya, grin still lingering on her lips. She rustles through her drawers and stands up, muttering, “Come here.” She seats Arya down in front of the mirror, brushing her sister’s hair once more away from her neck and beginning to dab concealer onto her hickies. As she works, swapping concealers to gain better coverage, so their mother doesn’t find out, at least not tonight, she tells Arya, “Next time, tell your ‘friend’ to be more discreet, hmm? How old are they anyway? Honestly, hickies are _so_ childish." 

Arya elbows her sharply in her stomach and Sansa pinches her cheek in response, but mere moments later Arya’s neck is as hickie free as the day she was born.

“Alright, you’re done,” Sansa says, pulling her sister out of her chair. “Go help mum, I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Arya nods, leaning over Sansa to admire her bare neck in the mirror. “Don’t touch it for a few minutes, you’ll smudge it if you do,” Sansa warns her. “And we wouldn’t want Mum to find out you weren’t ‘stuck in traffic’, would we?”

Arya glares at her, and pauses in the doorway. “Jon’s looking good, isn’t he?” she teases, and Sansa returns her glare. “Myrcella told me you were eyeing his butt before,” she cackles, and Sansa hisses out a sharp ‘Arya’ in response, but her sister is gone from her doorway before Sansa can find something, anything, to throw at her.

Seriously, there better be something other than beer that’s alcoholic to drink at this party, if she has any hope of making it through the night.

\---

Four delicious cocktails later, Sansa is standing outside under the thankfully now entirely erected gazebo, a glass in her hand and her pale blue dress swishing around her knees. She’s probably too dolled up for a simple dinner party, seeing as Theon is dressed in what looks like are his oldest pair of jeans, but she loves this dress, and she’ll take any chance she gets to wear it. Arya’s hickies are still concealed, her sister laughing in the corner alongside Jon, sneaking drinks whenever Dad isn’t looking at them. All in all, the party is going swimmingly, and even Rickon seems to be enjoying himself – even if that enjoyment stems from scaring the life out of their party guests.

She drains the rest of her glass, the liquor sweet on her tongue, and steps inside for a refill, narrowly dodging her mother and a plate piled high with food. Her Mum’s prepared too much food, as per usual, and most of the platters still sit untouched, their guests more preoccupied with drinking and socialising than sampling some of her mother’s food, Sansa herself included.

She mixes herself another drink, her measuring sloppier than it was four drinks ago, humming to herself as she stands alone in the kitchen. It’s a very pretty night, the sun having set only mere minutes ago and casting a pink hue across the sky, and not for the first time she wishes she were born in summer like Robb. Robb was always the one who could have extravagant parties, birthdays spent at the water park or the bench, whilst Sansa, having been born in the middle of winter, almost always had to spend her birthdays ice-skating or sipping hot cocoa. Just once it would have been nice to be able to invite her friends to the beach for her birthday, to lie in the sun and know that the sun was shining because it was her special day, no matter what anyone else thought.

Sansa sips slowly at her drink, thankful for whomever invented matte lipsticks, and leans against the sink, observing the backyard silently.  Robb looks happy, she thinks, watching as he winds a hand around Myrcella’s waist and presses a kiss to her cheek, more affectionate than he usually is with copious amounts of  alcohol coursing through his veins. And she’d never begrudge her brother his happiness (she’d never begrudge any of her siblings their happiness), but she has to wonder, when will it be her time to be happy?

And then, as if her decidedly less than festive thoughts have summoned him, Jon steps into the kitchen from the backyard, laughing over his shoulder at something Robb has yelled at him. He looks just as good as he did when he arrived, perhaps even better now she’s had four (nearly five) drinks. Seeing as the majority of their party guests are either family, friends of her parents, friends of Robb’s from university that she hardly knows, _Theon_ , Jon is looking more and more appealing to her every minute. Myrcella and Arya seem to think that there’s something between them, no matter how hard she protests, so why shouldn’t there be? Facebook has informed her that Jon’s single, she’s single, and Sansa thinks that she’s seen something in Jon’s eyes when he looks at her.

Or that might just be the alcohol talking, or her melancholic musings. She’s only twenty-two for Christ’s sakes, she has plenty of time to find love.

Jon smiles at her, an action which she finds herself returning, and heads to the fridge to grab another beer, discarding his empty one in the trash. “You look deep in thought,” he says, coming to stand beside her at the sink, both of them watching Theon making a fool of himself in front of Jeyne (whom Sansa knows is definitely interested in the Greyjoy, no matter how much of an ass he makes of himself) and watching Arya slip out the side gate, her sister’s departure unnoticed in the crowd of people.

“I suppose I am,” she replies, draining the rest of her drink.

Jon furrows his brow at her, placing a hand on her elbow to prompt her to turn towards him. She arches an eyebrow in response, but Jon’s fingers still remain on her skin and she finds she doesn’t mind the feeling. She looks up at him, his beard concealing his chin but a pair of pink, seemingly supple lips poking through, and she has to wonder, what would it be like to kiss him? Joffrey hadn’t been able to grow a beard, and the handful of boys she’d kissed before him had all been her peers during school, all soft-cheeked and cracking voices.

As silly as it sounds, Jon is a man, a year older than Robb and seemingly wiser for it. Where her brother has often floundered, unable to decide what path to pursue in life, Jon has always known what to do, graduating university and moving straight into working for his father, the manufacturing company Jon looks to inherit one day, seeing as his other siblings have shown no interest. Jon is stable, steady, and perhaps might just be the exact thing she needs.

“What are you thinking about then?” Jon asks, breaking her out of her quiet reverie. Sansa looks sideways at him for a moment, Jon unblinking, before she answers truthfully, honest in a way only alcohol seems to let her be.

“You.”

Jon’s mouth parts slightly, but he says nothing. Sansa worries that perhaps she has been too honest, too open, and she turns to leave, brushing her hair behind her ears and wondering just how she can escape this party to go up to her room and cry, because Jon’s still silent and gods she’s made an utter fool of herself but then –

Jon grabs her by the forearm, pulling her to him in a swift move Sansa’s sure she’s only seen in movies, and his fingers tenderly brush her cheeks, his palm cradling her chin. “May I?” he murmurs, so very close to her, Sansa extremely aware of the way his chest feels against hers, and she nods, unable to speak.

He kisses her so softly she thinks it must be something close to reverence, to devotion. His beard is an unfamiliar feeling against her cheeks, but not one she dislikes, and when they part for air, Jon rests his chin on top of her head, Sansa grinning into his neck.

“I’m always thinking about you,” he informs her a moment later, once they’ve both caught their breath, and at that, guests be damned, Sansa pulls him down for another kiss.

Her supposedly matte lipstick ends up everywhere but on her lips, and Myrcella and Arya delight in teasing her the next morning, high-fiving and whooping that they saw everything, but she barely registers their voices as her phone buzzes with a new text message, half-heartedly throwing a pillow at them.

_Thinking about you._

A moment later – _How could I not be, after that kiss? See you soon. And don't worry, I'll tell Robb._

Sansa flushes, burying her head in her pillows and grinning widely, happy as she has never been. 

**Author's Note:**

> Further kudos to Niamh because her headcanon that Sansa, instead of being a picturesque goddess, is tall and rather curvy prompted me to write the beginning of this fic...and then somewhere along the line what was supposed to be a simple character study morphed into this Sansa/Smalljon fic. Whoops!


End file.
